One Week Away

Yesterday marked my 24th birthday and one week until our trip. I spent the day packing my backpack and cleaning. It felt so good to get the packing taken care of. In the back of my mind, I worried about how heavy the pack would be and if everything would fit. After packing everything (except for my tooth brush...I will probably use it between now and then), I weighed the backpack and day pack. Together, they are exactly 25 pounds. I was shooting for less than 30 so that will work!

I was quite happy with my birthday presents yesterday! Most of it was money for the trip, but I also got a travel tripod, a quick release attachment for the tripod, and another 8 GB memory card for my camera. I now have the capacity to store around 6,500 pictures, and I wouldn't be surprised if I take that many. My creative senses will be on overdrive!

Last night, Keith and I watched "The Sound of Music." I thought I had better brush up since we will be visiting Salzburg. It is such a great movie!

After watching the movie last night and seeing the beauty of the surroundings and architecture, I couldn't help but be gleeful. This morning in church we sang "Thank you, Lord" and our music leader, Tony, invited us to say a prayer of thanksgiving to God. I realized that I have been so busy preparing for the trip that I haven't stopped to thank God for this amazing opportunity. His hand has been so obviously directing us in every step of the planning:
-Wendy and I have opposite "busy times" at work. It worked out that there was a little over a two week gap between the end of the Yard Dawgz season and the first event in our recruiting year.
-When we finally decided to go this year, Wendy was a little nervous to ask off of work for such a long time. Her procrastination about drove me crazy. While I waited on her, the original flight I had wanted completely booked. She finally swore to me she would ask off, and when she finally did, that night we found a flight for $1,000 cheaper per person than before.
-Our husbands are letting us go!
-We have the means to go thanks to saving up for quite some time and the generosity of friends and family for graduation and birthdays.

I am so thankful to God for how he has prepared us for this trip. People are always telling us how brave we are for "going it alone." So many family members, co-workers, and friends are worried about us two girls backpacking across foreign countries. My standard response is to tell them we are smart girls and will be careful and we won't "walk down a dark alley in the middle of the night to ask a guy with a knife where a bathroom is." All humor aside, I ask that you turn your worries over to God. He has led us and directed us thus far and I know that will not stop when we get on that plane. Ask Him for health and safety for us...and that we have the time of our lives!

Cinque Terre

It took months for me to figure out how to pronounce this quaint area that consists of five viliages off the West coast of Italy. Cink tear, Cink tear-uh, CinkQ tear-uh...I had no clue. Turns out, I was way off (Swammy...Swommy...Sampsonite!). It is pronounced Cheen Kway Ter Ray (thank you washingtonpost.com). Good to know, folks.

The more I researched this area, the more I fell in love with it. It is absolutely beautiful! The colorfull buildings are set on a hillside that drops into the ocean. There are very few roads but mostly narrow walkways between the tall villas (if you can call them that). After falling in love with the pictures, we decided instead of making Cinque Terre a day trip, we would stay the night there. I began looking for accommodations and found that it is a lot harder than most places. Hostelworld.com was of little help. This area has very few hotels and hostels but instead, bed and breakfasts. Most of these are actually a room that is rented out of an Italian household. I've heard before that if you contact one place and they do not have accommodations, they will refer you to "cousin Tony." And that they do. I have probably corresponded with over 30 people about a place to stay. Each one regretfully informs me that there is no vacancy but I can "contact _______ and ask refer my name _______. Maybe discount?" (Their broken English is quite amusing) I have finally struck gold in a few places. One hostel, one B&B (traditional), and one travel agent with several places to offer. Progress!

We now think we might want to stay for two nights, but by doing this will have to cut out another stop. How do you say, "We will skip _______(insert any place in Europe)." Right now, it looks like Heidelberg is on the chopping block. We both want to see it, but think we mmight rather spend an extra night in Cinque Terre. This may all depend on whether there are accommodations for an extra night in Cinque Terre.

So I will await another email using broken English telling me "this is my web for check the room" and requesting my surname.

PS-This is also a test for using my pda and compact keyboard for posting. If you are reading this, it must have worked!

Hostels and Route

Wendy came over last night to work on some final planning for our trip. It was so good to see her! We accomplished a lot but still have a lot to do. We were very excited when we made reservations for our hostel in London. We are staying at the Journeys Paddington which is very central to Buckingham Palace, Waterloo station, The London Eye, etc. It's a new hostel and it's cheap. Our first hiccup was realized after we made the reservation. Because we made the reservation using a debit card, we are required to call ahead and confirm our reservation by 1200 hours the day of check in. Luckily, due to the time change (they are 6 hours ahead of us), we will be able to call before heading to the airport to confirm.

We also decided on a hostel for Paris: the Auberge International Jeunes. We are supposed to fax our reservation but I have sent an email asking about the possibility of emailing our reservation. If I haven't heard from them by tomorrow, I guess I will be making an international fax. Good thing I already have an international calling card!

There are a few things we are try to nail down with the itinerary. We can't decide whether we want to make Heidelberg a day trip and continue on to Munich that evening, or spend the night in Heidelberg and day trip to Fussen on the way to Munich. We are leaning towards the second scenario. We found a cute hostel in Heidleberg that was fairly inexpensive but has no air conditioning...You win some, you lose some.

Our next steps are to finalize route, decide on hostels, and make reservations. Hopefully by the end of this week, all of those things will have happened.

While reading up on Rome in a guidebook, I found an amazing site that we must go see. The Mamertine Prison is where the apostles Paul and Peter were held before there execution. It will be so amazing to walk on the same floors that Biblical characters once did.

Okay, I'll stop day dreaming and end this post.

The Mamertine Prison

The Planning Phase

I decided to start this blog so everyone can keep up with Wendy and I as we travel through Europe. Hopefully, I'll be able to update it every few days with our new location, adventures, pictures, etc.

I checked the mySpace counter and we are 25 days from lift off. I am so excited! I've started to get nervous, but not in a bad way. I'm more nervous about finishing all the last minute planning and packing. Wendy is comming to Weatherford on Tuesday night to finish up the planning. We have chosen our route, but still need to finalize what we want to do in each location as well as where we plan to stay. We will go ahead and make reservations for the first few nights in London and possibly Paris. We don't want to be tied down to a specific itinerary but don't want to show up and there be "no room in the inn."

Side note: Keith seriously cracks me up. He asked me yesterday where we will take showers. I was a little confused as to why he was asking but told him that we would take showers in the hostels. He acted surprised that they would have showers and said "I thought they were like caves or grass huts or something and you'd sleep on the floor." I laughed for 20 minutes. He was just kidding, of course, but it was still funny. He really didn't know what the hostels would be like so I had to tell him all about them.

Anywho, keep checking this blog and I'll keep you updated on the who, what, when, and wheres of the trip. I grant you permission to live vicariously through this blog. :-)